Milk run!

Now that we live in the city, running to the store isn’t the ordeal it used to be.

When we lived in the country, a gallon of milk was an hour away − 20 minutes to drive to town, 20 minutes back, and the 20 minutes in between that it took to walk from the parking lot to the back of the store where the dairy products are displayed.

I’m surprised my children weren’t raised solely on well water.

But when I started working at the BIG school in the BIG city, a grocery store was almost next door to my new job. If we needed something, IT Guy and I (we carpooled) would just make a stop on the way home from work. The farm was still 35 minutes away so we couldn’t pick up any ice cream but we were good to go for most anything else.

One evening as we stood in line waiting to pay for a few groceries, my mind was spinning, trying to think if there was anything else that we needed on the farm. A lady walked by with a bag of apples and my thoughts leaped to pie, a favorite subject in our home.

I turned to my spouse. “If you help me peel apples when we get home, I’ll make you a pie tonight,” I told him.

IT Guy hesitated and squinted his eyes, clearly torn between hauling hay for the cows or peeling apples and eating a couple of slices of warm homemade pie before bed.

“Mister,” the man in front of us said as he turned around and looked at my husband, “if you don’t take her up on that offer, I will.”

He's not funny.
Don't encourage him!

IT Guy tells people he gets a free coozie every time he bails me out of jail!

My Favorite Thing Party! Come join us! Ninety-third post and counting!

A picture of some of my favorite things:

I just had to join Thrifty Decor Chick's Favorite Thing Party,
courtesy of Jen at Sanctuary Arts at Home.
I have many favorite things
but this picture
shows
so
many
of them...
my love of home,
my love of garage sales,
my love of cowboy decorating.
The only thing it doesn't show is my love...

so here he is!

Hodgepodge - a motley assortment of things

Thing 1. FringeGirl at The Domestic Fringe knows the cutest kid named Abby. Abby is six and has cancer. Visit FringeGirl and read Abby's story. My Christmas present to myself is a check to that family and I'm sending it today so they can have a better Christmas!

Thing 2. My foster dog Bailee is living large in Dickerson, Texas, now. He has three step-cat sisters and a step-Chihuahua brother. His new uncle is a veterinarian. This is Tami, the wonder home-finder, driving away with him, to start his new life. His new daddy had to tell his new momma that Bailee has legs...she didn't want to put him down!

Thing 3. The cowboy boot mirror is done and ready for delivery. That rancher had great boots to work with. I love the cowhide, complete with tail, that he traded me for making the mirror!

Thing 4. "I learned the Russian word for snow today...снег (pronounced sneg)." From http://pavlasfamily.blogspot.com/2008/11/blog-post.html



So you can call me Sneg!

Retractions, Corrections, and Benches

"You misquoted me on your blog yesterday," IT Guy told me last evening.

"I did?" I asked, innocently sitting down on the nearest bench.

"Yes." He paused to make sure he had my attention. "Technically, I said, 'Son of a bench! Stop making these dang things!' "

"What's the difference?" I said, doubting he had used the word dang.

"The difference is, I want to get credit for a great pun!"

Credit given, IT Guy.


Here are more benches. Thanks for stopping by. Do you want sugar in your iced tea?

I can't stand it when old fence wood is thrown out. I feel compelled to make something out of such good, weathered wood, so I have a fencebench in the front yard and a fencebench in the back yard, plus I've sold a few fencebenches. (Say that word fast three times!)


This bench is a favorite, mainly because the sides are shaped like cowboy boots.

On the seat of the bootbench, I painted playing cards. My daughter, Code Girl, says I need to paint another one. I'm one short, like that's news to anyone that knows me.

For lurkers who don't read the comments, I quote from yesterday:

Anonymous said...

Come, dear friend,
Let's sit a spell.
The weather's fine,
All is well.
We'll sip a glass of Texas tea and
Enjoy the shade of the kind oak tree.

The night Texas Woman and IT Guy met

I’m a cougar. So’s my sister. I’m 62. She’s 66. (Sorry, Sis.) Our husbands are 50 and 54, respectively.

We were just happily married women until some goofball decided that from that day forward older women married to or dating significantly younger men would be named after the sleek predator cat. Both our marriages pre-date the term by many, many years.

How Sis and I both ended up with men who just happen to be twelve years younger is not something that’s at the forefront of our minds, just like the fact both men are computer guys. Coincidences, merely.

But since you asked, I’ll tell you how IT Guy and I met.

Almost twenty years ago we both traveled to Austin from two different and distant towns to dance at a certain Texas dance hall. We met through lack of chairs and two-stepped for most of the evening.

“I want to see you again,” he said late in the night.

“It’s dark in here, and I’m older than I look,” I replied.

“I’m balder than I look,” he said, and I realized I hadn’t seen him without his cowboy hat.

“How bald?” I asked.

“How old?” he inquired.

I took my driver’s license out of my back pocket and handed it to him. He quickly calculated the age difference. As he handed the laminated piece of paper back, he doffed his cowboy hat, bent his head forward, and showed me his baldness.

“Let’s dance,” he said, sticking his hat back on his head.

When IT Guy tells the story, he always adds, “And we’ve been dancin’ ever since!”